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Afternoon of the Rising Sun: The Battle of Leyte Gulf

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The battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of World War II and for all practical reasons, the end of the Japanese navy as a fighting force. Kenneth Friedman has done a superior job of describing each encounter that took place between the Japanese and Americans off the Philippines.

The goal of the Japanese was to destroy the American troop ships anchored off of Leyte. They devised a bold plan to trap the Americans in a pincer movement. One force was to steam through the San Bernadino Strait and attack from the center, while a second group was to attack from the South out of the Surigao Strait. A 3rd force consisting of the Japanese carriers attempted to lure the bulk of the American carrier strength North from the Leyte beachhead, leaving it virtually defenseless. American submarines spotted the Northern force and sank 2 haevy cruisers. The force reversed course, but did not retreat, much to the later surprise of the Americans. Meanwhile, a group of American battleships, some of them Pearl Harbor veterans, thoroughly destroyed the Southern force. However, the center force had regrouped and continued through the San Bernadino Strait. The only force the Americans had guarding the beaches were 3 light carrier forces under the command of Admiral Clifton Sprague. What transpired over the next couple of hours can only be described as a naval miracle. Using sheer courage and excellent tactics, the tiny carriers managed to hold off a force consisting of battleships and heavy cruisers and kept the beachhead safe. Meanwhile, Admiral Halsey's tactics were severely scrutinized. He took the Japanese bait and led his entire force of fast battleships and fleet carriers north to attack the Japanese carriers while leaving the Leyte beachhead virtually defenseless. This prompted Admiral Nimitz to send his famous message: "Where is Task Force 34? The World Wonders". If not for Sprague's heroics, the outcome of this battle could have been much different.

I thought this book was very well written. The author included many tables and charts which helped me understand the battle much better. Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the story of Sprague's escort carriers. The author credits Sprague with saving the day for the Americans. I would highly recommend this book. It flows along at a good pace and does a good job of explaining one of the major battles in U.S. Navy history.

This book takes a complex battle and explains it in such a way that the reader can easily understand what happened and when. The author seems to have spent considerable time doing the research for this work because he offers so much information from the Japanese perspective as well as the American. I particularly enjoyed the detail he went into explaining and analyzing the reasons the commanders made the decisions they did. Written in an easy, flowing narrative style, the book is one that I could not put down once I started reading it. It was a real page turner. A must read for those who want to know more about World War II in the Pacific!

This is perhaps one of the best scholarly histories of a naval battle you can buy, and a powerfully good account of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Although this book is more historically oriented than popularly oriented it is still very enjoyable to read as the author makes a clear effort to humanize all the facts, analysis and context behind what became the largest naval battle ever fought. This makes its long 391 page length (and each individual page is fairly information packed) far easier to digest.

He goes through all phases of the battle, which was actually a campaign of four or five battles depending on how you count, giving equal weight to the American and Japanese perspective. This paints a canvas that allows you to understand the battle in its entirety; how the strategic interplay of both sides' plans, objectives, knowledge of each other, and actions inexorably cast the outcome. Context, fact, analysis and personalized stories are presented concurrently in a seamless and skillful fashion.

He proceeds from the seedlings of the battle, where the Americans and Japanese altered their grand strategies for the war after the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Here the American debates between MacArthur and Nimitz were particularly interesting. The preceeding battles, namely the Air Battle of Formosa, which played a critical role in the upcoming Leyte campaign are then described, followed by every naval facet of the actual Leyte campaign itself that you could want to know. Everything in the book is well researched and extremely detailed. There is also a particular, and highly justified, focus on the actions off Samar on 25 OCT 1944, also memorialized outstandingly in "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors."

This is a highly recommended read for any WWII or Navy history buffs! A lot can be learned about waging wars and fighting battles in general from this pivotal action, and the author does much to teach it to you.

Kenneth Freidland has done a wonderful job of bringing to life the detailed events leading to and surrounding this gripping story. If ever you wanted to feel good about the military or proud of the values that this country is built on, you will find it here.

As a historical tribute, there are a lot of details (so many names of so many bombers and all of their targets) that many will be grateful for, but some may find bothersome. Deal with it.

Perhaps lost prematurely in a world of competitive publishing that mistakenly overlooked foresight, Freidland's work deserves a much bigger audience! (Or perhaps a screenwriter!!)

It just might be relevant to the world currently around us.

UPDATE: Thank you to Amazon for linking to Friedman's biography and to his most recent book. (now available on Kindle)...wonder if this one will ever be available there.

He sure does have a knack for writing about WWII history!

I want to recommend Dr. Friedman's very well researched written work, "Afternoon of The Rising Sun." Since very shortly after the war I have read almost every account that I could find. We were there serving as the unwitting bait for the three pronged Japanese attack force. We were aware at some point we were in severe jeopardy but never really knew just how much until later. It was then and always has been very difficult to put it all in proper time sequence. Dr. Friedman makes it much more understandable.

This is the best one volume account of the many I have read. The insights on Halsey's rationale for concentrating his carrier strikes and Battleship escorts on Ozawa's Northern Decoy Force are illuminating. He was fooled more by his own overconfidence then by the Japanese. I only wish the ensuing battle of cape Engano had received the meticulous and detailed treatment given to the action off Cape Samar or the well written summary of Surigao Strait. The description of parts of the first strike at Cape Engano are very precise but the author presents them as represntative of the rest of the battle, to which he assigns only a general summary. The same type of sequential and superbly diagramed outline of the manuevers at Samar should have been given to the section on Cape Engano, the typically least reported phase of the battle.

While this book may be not as well researched as other books on the same subject, I did like and find it easy to read.
I'm not an expert, but I like to read about WWII Pacific battles, so I found a little disturbing 2 mistakes that I read in the book:

1. page 47, it says Kurita was born in 1899. Page 48 it says 'When he was 55 years old, he led the bombardment group assigned to protect the Japanese invasion forces at Midway'. Midway was fought in 1942, so Kurita was 43 (or 42, but not 55);

2. page 365, listing fleet carries in task force 38 (as of Oct. 24, 1944), it names Intrepid, Lexington, Essex, Enterprise and Franklin. Page 366 it reads "You would see five Essex-class fast carries...". No, you would not, because Enterprise was a Yorktown-class carrier.

So if I could find these mistakes, I wonder how many more are still there.
I found maps and diagrams very interesting and helpfull in understanding the situation on the field, something I missed very much in Barrett Tillman's book about the Mariana Turkey Shoot.

Wonderful narrative of one of the pivotal sea battles of WWII. My regret is that the modern generation apparantly has no sense of our history therefore the book will not get read by those who would most benefit from it. The heroism and dedication displayed by the participants in this great battle is the bedrock upon which this nation was built. Brilliantly told story, a MUST read!

Afternoon of the Rising Sun is a fabulous account of one of the major sea battles of WWII. The subject of Leyte gets kind of buried beneath the accounts of Pearl Harbor and Midway, so, thank the author for making your book available to those of us who would like to increase our knowledge on the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I found that the amount of detail is just perfect -- not too minute as to be boring, and yet plenty of information so that the reader will know exactly what is going on. Most people would not associate this subject matter as being of particular interest to a female, but I found it to be MOST interesting. The definitions at the beginning of the book, and the parenthetical inserts through out the book were a great touch. I especially liked the account of MacArthur fulfilling his promise to return to the Phillipines.

The pace of this book exceeds a Tom Clancy novel. So much happens in just one day that author has a real chore to get all the information to the reader. Kenneth Friedman does this with excellence. Every American with a sense of history and what this country is all about should read this book. Men named Ernst Evans, Copeland, and Clifford Sprague will be remember for thier uncommon valor. Another, Oldendorf has his high place in US Naval history, no matter how forgotten he may be today. The battle itself involved sound judgment, unsound judgment, and some plain good luck. Rain squalls sure helped. American ingenutiy was a factor. The concept of converting an old transport into an escort carrier perhaps saved the day. It was almost the first team regular Navy under Halsey/Nimitz operating with the mavrick second team Navy operated under Kinkaid/MacArthur. Herein lies the depth of the Freidman account. A huge organization like the US Navy has a tendency to overdue management. A small autonomous organization has much better control and the ability to quickly innovate. Destroyer tactics where never better than that which the K/M produced. The use of planes against capitol ships was likewise both bold and effective.

We owe much to the sailors and pilots who fought the battle of Leyte Gulf and Friedman's book is an appropriate memorial and a very good read.